Article Launched: 07/02/2008 08:56:25 PM PDT

Properly safeguarding public dollars and increasing public trust in government has always been - and will continue to be - the hallmarks of my career in public office.
- prepared statement from San Bernardino County Assessor Bill Postmus after his assistant was jailed.

The statement above, allegedly from the county assessor, seems to have come instead from some bizarre alternate universe where up is down and right is wrong.

In that universe, we suppose, Postmus didn’t mix political work with his official duties as chairman of the county Board of Supervisors and then county assessor, nor did he fill the Assessor’s Office with his political cronies at public expense. In that universe, he must not have vaporized during the major wildfires of 2006 and then spent taxpayer money to fight a public-records request for his calendar during his time “away.”

But here in the little corner of our universe we call San Bernardino County, he has done all of those things. He has misspent taxpayer money on his friends and has decreased public confidence in government, his statement notwithstanding.

And now his loyal lap dog, Assistant Assessor Adam Aleman, has been jailed and charged with six felonies that involve destroying public records and preparing and presenting forged evidence as a result of a grand jury’s work. District Attorney’s investigators believe that Aleman removed and destroyed the hard drive from Postmus’ laptop in June

——————————————————————————–

Advertisement

——————————————————————————–
or July 2006, when Postmus was still supervisors chairman and Aleman was his spokesman. Do you suppose Postmus didn’t notice his laptop had been destroyed?
Hmmm. The Sun sued the county to obtain calendars and records of communications between Postmus and other county officials during that same time period after officials gave conflicting reports of Postmus’ whereabouts during major wildfires in July.

“It’s not a good day for the county,” said Paul Biane, current Board of Supervisors chairman after Aleman was arrested and the grand jury report was issued. He plans to propose new transparency and accountability measures for elected officials, saying, “Everybody has worked so hard to move the county forward” after its scandals of the 1990s.

But they haven’t worked hard enough. There’s not much in the grand jury report that hasn’t been reported and editorialized on by this newspaper.

We’ve written about the way Postmus installed political cronies with no related experience, like Aleman and Jim Erwin, in the top jobs at the Assessor’s Office and soaked taxpayers to fund training and college educations.

We’ve written about the trip Postmus took to four states on his county credit card, only to switch his story from the trip being personal to it being a staff retreat.

We’ve written about “Postmus Palace,” the multimillion-dollar upgrade of the Assessor’s Office facilities once he took over; and how he “increased efficiency” by getting the board to approve five new appointed positions in the office that he could fill with his political backers.

We’ve written extensively about how Postmus and other supervisors have hidden behind attorney-client privilege to keep important details of county dealings away from the public, time after time. (Biane, by the way, wouldn’t release his own calendar for the June-August 2006 period, though Supervisors Gary Ovitt, Josie Gonzales and Dennis Hansberger did.)

The supervisors and other leaders of county government like County Administrative Officer Mark Uffer have been aware of all those things, but none of them has criticized Postmus or made a real stand for ethics.

We acknowledge the many valuable steps the board has taken toward openness under Biane, such as putting campaign financing and county contracts online. But there has been a “see no evil” attitude on the part of men who themselves are honorable like Biane and Ovitt.

When the newspaper fought to obtain release of the Gumport report on allegations of misconduct in county land transactions a couple of years ago, Ovitt likened the newspaper to a child demanding candy after Mom and Dad have already said no.

Well, welcome to the childish club, grand jury. Welcome, District Attorney Michael A. Ramos.

If the “adults” don’t want to police county ethics, we guess it’s up to the “children.”

Supervisor-elect Neil Derry ousted Hansberger by promising to bring ethical accountability to the county. He has made forming an ethics commission one of his top priorities.

May he be successful. And may the commission have teeth.